As a college student, I would have to say that for me the most difficult part of financing higher education is tuition. Going to a private institution, and even a public institution, can be a very expensive life cost. Fortunately, there are scholarships and grants scattered all over the place just waiting for students to take advantage of.

With that taken care of, the second most difficult finance in college is textbooks. Textbooks can cost anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars per semester. For the average undergraduate college student that could amount to approximately $5,000 just for textbooks! As with tuition, there are great opportunities to save a lot of money on textbooks and my favorite methods live online.

These are my top 5 sites for buying, selling, trading, or renting college textbooks :

1. Half.com

Half.com is a subsidiary of eBay which is basically eBay without the bidding aspect. It predominantly focuses on person-to-person or business-to-person sales of books/textbooks, movies, music, and games/game systems which makes it a perfect choice for those who are interested in selling an old textbook or buying one used on the cheap.

Textbook listings give all the necessary information about the text and sorts copies for sale by quality. They also make it a breeze to list a book simply by entering the ISBN number.

Half.com charges a 15% commission to sellers and uses the eBay feedback system for user ratings so you can decide which sellers to trust.

2. Amazon.com

Amazon is one of the biggest, most respected, and most trusted online merchants so it would make sense that it would be a great choice for buying and selling new and used textbooks. Amazon’s textbook section is very identical to Half.com. They charge the same 15% commission for textbooks and pay shipping costs to the seller. However, it may be a bit more difficult than Half.com to sift through used books. This would be a great choice if you are familiar with and enjoy the Amazon shopping experience.

3. Chegg.com

Chegg has a very interesting business model. They rent textbooks rather than sell. This makes getting a hold of textbooks much cheaper and you don’t have to deal with selling them or holding on to them after you are done with the book.

Chegg is the Netflix of textbooks. How it works is simple. You go to the site and select the textbooks you need. You pay the one-time rental price for each book and pay for them to ship it to you. You then keep the book until you are finished with it or you have the option to purchase the book later. When you are finished with the book, revisit the site and you can print out a shipping label for the books you want to send back and you ship them back to Chegg. It’s as easy as that!

4. Socialbib

[NO LONGER WORKS] Socialbib is perhaps the most interesting way to get the textbooks you need while getting rid of the ones you don’t. This site allows you to “trade” books with other “traders.” How this works is you create an account on the site. By default, you have one credit. Credits earn you free books. To gain credits you give away your old textbooks.

So you are essentially trading books for FREE although it isn’t the same person you are getting a book from as the one you are giving a book to but in the end it works out. It is a great idea for saving cash and is worth a try.

5. Rakuten.com

Rakuten.com (formerly Buy.com) is another great online-only retailer with a great discount textbook section. Rakuten.com is similar to Amazon in that they sell just about everything from baby things to sports. They have highly competitive pricing and discounts and pretty much takes any form of payment including Google Checkout and Paypal.

Not only do they have great prices on products, they provide inexpensive shipping, and they even compare their prices to the prices of leading competitors so you know you’re getting a good deal.

How do you get your textbooks each semester? Let us know in the comments.

One of the best places I have found to purchase textbooks is Uloop http://ow.ly/YfW7 -- They connect students with other students so all transactions are local, which means you don't have to worry about shipping anything. Also, unlike Amazon & eBay they don't take a cut. This means books are cheaper (buyer) as well as more profitable (seller).

Listamillion.com classified ads is a wonderful site for buying and selling cheap items such as college textbooks. I was in need of cheap textbooks and while I was doing a search, I ran across listamillion.com. I was definately impressed with the selection of items on the site. There are so many people that are selling their stuff on sites like these for cheaper prices because they just want to get rid of these textbooks and get some money to buy more books for the next semester. College students are in need of money and textbook flipping is a main source of income. I would highly recommend you guys to check out listamillion classified ads.

I would suggest using GreenTextbooks.org
Save Money, Save The Planet
GreenTextbooks.org specializes in the recycling of textbooks, DVDs, CDs. Buying used textbooks not only saves you money, but cuts down on greenhouse gases caused by the manufacturing of new textbooks.
With GreenTextbooks.org you're not only saving trees, you are saving some green.http://www.greentextbooks.org

Other ways I've saved on buying textbooks - check out some of the student to student swap sites listed and on the web to cut out the middle man. Go to the library and see if they have a copy on reserve. Look for older versions of the textbook which are usually much cheaper and almost exactly the same. As another user commented...international textbooks can also save you money.

That is why I created StudentBookTrades.com. An easy way to find college textbooks that other students have already completed courses for. Students are automatically matched with each other to trade textbooks for classes they have completed. Trade, Swap, sell, or buy college textbooks from other students. Search the book database, contact the student at your home campus, city, state, or nationwide about the book and save money.

Chegg sounded like a great idea. Not having to worry about selling textbooks at the end of the semester sounds great! The prices are pretty good, for the most part. I decided to rent two books (ones I know I didn't want to keep after the return date). One was here very quickly. The other one is floating out in Cheggville somewhere. It was "supposed" to be here five days ago, but the other was here two weeks ago (did I mention they were ordered on the same day?)!! I may try to use them ONE more semester, but if Chegg fails again, I cannot tolerate it! I need the books! I'll update when I know more.

A good website to checkout for the best prices on college textbooks is ValoreBooks.com. Valore also has a page explaining all the options you have when buying your textbooks. Heres the link to that page: valorebooks.com/Search.BuyBooksUniversity.do

Don't forget about comparing prices when you go to sell the books back. The campus bookstore typically offers you a lowball price. You can get twice as much, or more by selling it to the right place. Use bookscouter.com to compare prices from all of the websites that buy used books.

I'm sorry, but Valorebooks.com is the best. I bought international textbooks (not illegal, by the way!) and saved literally hundreds of dollars each term. Where else can you get quality physics and engineering textbooks for 30 bucks?

I used collegeswapshop.com this semester, and it did exactly what I needed: quickly compared prices at lots of bookstores (including shipping), and presented coupon codes for the bookstores that had them. I also created a price alert because my Biology book was ridiculously expensive, so I'm hoping to snag it when the price drops (hopefully soon, classes start next week!).

I honestly Can't believe Bigwords.com wasn't listed. I don't mean to be too supportive of the last commenter but until you use it, you have no idea what you are missing. It calculates the shipping into the price. You can rent books and buy international copies that have lower list prices! Huge heads up to Nick for missing this resource. Try every one of those resources and then see how they compare. I prrrooommmmiiissseeeee, it's the best way to cut corners on college spending.

I've allways used Bigwords.com and i've found them to be the better of all of these sites, cause its a one stop shop place where i can get all my books at great prices! The reason they're the best is that they compare many items at once, and calculate the best combination of stores to buy at, including coupons and shipping. They also let you include or exclude international editions, and they let you choose the ship time and then calculate the lowest price using the right shipping type at every store.

Hi KS, Can you provide more detail when you say the "state's library system". Is that the same as saying our local public library?? You said you checked them out for free but how long were you able to keep the book? I'm not certain what you mean or how to go about doing this the right way or the way that you did. Please explain! Thanks!

campusbooks.com is the best I have found, automatically querying the top websites selling/renting textbooks and displaying their respective prices (as well as shipping charges) for easy comparison. The above are great, along with bookbyte.com and alibris.com, but why search several sites when one will do all of the legwork for you?